Origami is the art of paper folding: the name is constructed from the two Japanese words ‘ori’ (meaning fold) and ‘gami’ (meaning paper). Paper folding has been used in both China and Japan for ceremonial and traditional purposes for many hundreds of years. However, there is also a Western tradition that is not as well documented.
Paper was invented in China, and Cai Lun is known to have introduced the concept of sheets of paper around the year 105 CE. Making paper from the macerated bark of trees, hemp waste, old rags and fishnets, he discovered a cheaper way of creating a writing surface compared to cloth made of silk that was commonly used. Papermaking skills then migrated to Korea and then Japan, via Buddhist monks by 610. Japanese papermakers further improved the quality of paper – making it suitable for folding. It must be noted that no hard evidence of origami exists before 1600. One of the earliest known paper-folding instruction books was Akisato Rito’s Sembazuru orikata (1797), showing how to fold linked cranes cut and folded from a square of paper.
German educator Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852), inventor of kindergarten, was a strong proponent of the educational benefits of paper folding, helping to spread the craft around the world. Three basic types of folds are associated with him: the Folds of Life (basic folds that introduced kids to paper folding), the Folds of Truth (teaching basic principles of geometry), and the Folds of Beauty (more-advanced folds based on squares, hexagons, and octagons).
Around 1880 these three types of folds were introduced into Japan and Japanese schools, and around that time the word ‘origami’ began being used to describe recreational folding.
Spanish author and philosopher Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) was also significant in spreading the popularity of origami; he was a celebrated paper folder who could be found in cafés making paper birds.
In England, Margaret Campbell’s seminal book Paper Toy Making was published in 1937, containing a large collection of origami designs. Two years later the paper flexagons of British mathematician A.H. Stone, whose paper structures altered their faces in curious ways when properly flexed, provided a boost to both the recreational and educational popularity of paper folding.
By the late 1980s, Jun Maekawa, Fumiaki Kawahata, Issei Yoshino, and Meguro Toshiyuki in Japan and Peter Engel, Robert Lang, and John Montroll in the United States had advanced techniques further, inspiring, for example, the folding of creatures and insects with multiple legs and antennae.
A new origami art is emerging where paper can be transformed into many aesthetically beautiful forms. But for most people origami is fun, a way of relaxing and being creative with very simple materials. People have designed action models, such as flapping birds and jumping frogs, and origami based games and puzzles. Origami is no longer an esoteric Eastern art, but a creative pastime that is accessible to everyone.
Paper can be folded to create almost any shape, from simple representational designs, through detailed animals, to complex insects. New folding techniques have emerged to produce tesselations and more complex designs, such as a plated pangolin.
There are no formal origami training courses though a number of providers offer origami workshops, often as an informal/social activity.
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